Dengue rears its head again

Statesman News Service

MALDA, ( India) . Nov. 23 — Fresh dengue cases have been detected in English Bazaar. A group of doctors on Wednesday claimed that two women have contracted the disease.

According to them, the conditions of the two women are serious and they are being kept under the observation of specialist doctors.

Interestingly, the two cases have been detected in the heart of English Bazaar town — Government Colony and its adjoining location, Rabindra Avenue.

“Dengue has not left yet. Mrs Kumkum Nag, resident Government Colony is under the treatment of Dr Tapan Haldar and others at her residence. She is in a serious condition”, said Swami Divyananda, secretary of the Malda Ramakrishna Mission.

After visiting the patient and the area he told this correspondent: “The area is reeling under a mosquito menace. I have seen big mosquitoes which sting humans every second”.

Mr Suresh Bihani, husband of Mrs Bina Bihani, a resident of Rabindra Avenue, said: “Thank god for saving the life of my wife. I had to admit my wife to a nursing home in Kolkata and had been able to increase the plasma count which had gone down to 16,000 as shown in the blood property (platelet) test”.

Bina is now out of danger, he added.

He also said: “The district hospital needs to get such a machine for the patients so that the doctors here can increase plasma for saving the lives of dengue patients”.

Mr PR Das Munshi, Union minister for parliamentary affairs and information and broadcasting, was approached for funds to set up such a machine in the Malda district hospital for better treatment of patients.

The Malda chief medical officer of health, Dr GC Sarkar, has instructed health officials to visit the two spots and submit a report about the vector control situation there.

“Vector control is a continual process. As far as I know, the vector control programme is going on in many wards in English Bazaar”, said Dr Sarkar.

He also claimed that indoor and outdoor spraying of mosquito repellants is going on in slum areas like Buraburitala and Kulipara areas. Besides, DDT is being sprayed in the block areas of this district for the past 15 days. #

MALDA. Oct. 3. — Doctors at Malda have apparently failed to check death of children suffering from viral encephalitis.

Health authorities said symptomatic treatment could not save the lives of patients below ten years who were suffering from viral encephalitis.

Children across the district and also the neighbouring districts have been admitted to the Malda District Hospital with typical symptoms.

Most of them died during observation after provisional diagnosis, a senior government doctor said. Four such children have died of viral encephalitis and meningoencephalitis in the last two days.

“In many cases doctors didn’t get time to prescribe ‘life saving drugs’ for them before dying owing to unpredictable changes in symptoms of patients,” one of the doctors said.

“Even before being diagnosed the children have died. We were helpless after watching their a few atypical symptoms,” Dr Gopal Sarkar , the Malda CMOH, said.

He also said that there was no specific treatment for viral infection in such a situation. A child from Kaliachak III, had also died of viral encephalitis in the district hospital increasing the death toll to 46.

Today the CMOH said that another child, a resident of Tapan in South Dinajpur, suffering from viral encephalitis will die soon.

The doctors have recorded symptoms of such patients as Japanese encephalitis, encephalitis, dengue and others like enteric fever.

Doctors are also worried about the inflammation of the brain of many children who died recently in the Malda District Hospital.

The inflow of new patients suffering from high fever continued unabated in the district hospital today.

Around 47 odd patients were admitted to the district hospital today.

Over 3,700 people have been affected by this viral fever since August in this declared endemic zone claiming 46 lives till date and hundreds of such patients are being treated in the district hospital. — SNS

Statesman News Service
MALDA, Oct. 4 — The Malda district magistrate and the zilla parishad sabhadhipati today held a meeting with health officials and those of the public health engineering department for immediate disinfection of drinking water sources to reduce the cases of enteric fever.

The district has identified five blocks like Habibpur , Bamongola, Ratua I and II and Manikchak from where maximum enteric fever cases have been reported.

The district magistrate, Mr Abhijit Chaudhuri, has instructed the officials concerned to start disinfecting the drinking water sources like tubewells, wells and ponds in the five blocks.

Bleaching powder will be sprayed in the deep and shallow tubewells, wells and ponds, officials said.

The top officials have also urged the implementing agencies to do the job seriously so that the district does not face any fresh outbreak of diarrhoea in the densely-populated areas.

District health officials have urged public health engineering officials to plug leaks in the arsenic-free water pipeline.

The Malda CMOH, Dr GC Sarkar, said: “The leaks in the pipeline in the densely-populated northern and southern parts of the district will only help bio-terrorists to inject cholera virus into it and spell disaster for human life’’.

The PHE officials have expressed helplessness to check illegal tapping of pipeline water by drilling holes as the department lacks manpower in Kaliachak, English Bazaar and Manikchak areas.

Meanwhile, around 52 patients were admitted to the district hospital today.

While 32 of them have dengue symptoms, 15 are suffering from malaria fever and the remaining five are ridden with Japanese encephalitis.

The block hospitals have admitted 12 dengue-affected patients, seven malaria-affected and one with JE symptom.

Till date over 3889 patients have been affected in the district and of them 3350 have been released from government hospitals.

While the Malda district magistrate has expressed concern over the encephalitis cases detected recently claiming the lives of some children, the health authorities have expressed concern following detection of two falcepherum malaria cases in the district hospital.

The two patients have been identified as Arikul Islam, resident of Sreepur in Ratua block who has carried over the disease from Lamding in Assam and another one, a resident of Chhoto Sujapur in Kaliachak, brought the disease from Koraput in Orissa.

The health officials said: “Migrant labourers are importing such diseases here affecting others but there is no way to control the menace”. #

Death toll on the rise for other diseases

MALDA. Oct. 5. — At a time when the mystery fever death toll is nil in the last three days, the death toll is over 85 owing to other causes in the last 10 days in the district hospital, officials said today.

But the district officials were relieved today observing the condition of present admitted patients in the district hospital.

On the other hand, Malda health officials have been directed to mobilise forces for conducting survey to know details about the areas where confirmed Japanese encephalitis and malaria cases have been detected.

The officials are now collecting addresses of the patients admitted to the district hospital with a view to vector control programme and awareness generation in these affected villages.

The district hospital records showed the death toll is only three owing to encephalitis and viral encephalitis between 1 and 2 October.

From 3 to 5 October till 10 am no death case has been reported.From 1 October till the last five days, 97 fever patients were admitted to district hospital.

But the trend of admission was 67, 44 and 63 fever patients on every succeeding day. Only 17 fever patients were admitted out of 70 till 10 am today.

And the death toll is 46 owing to fever including Japanese encephalitis, encephalitis, viral encephalitis, meningoencephalitis and malaria since 30 August.

But on the other hand, the rate of death due to other causes was high, according to hospital records.

Over 85 patients died of other causes in the last 10 days. The abnormal death report due to other causes was 10 on 25 August, 16 on 27 August, 11 on 28 August, 10 on 29 August and 14 patients died on 1 October. SNS